Brazilian Volunteers
Detained in Madrid
Airport For 26 Hours
Rio de Janerio - A group
of Brazilian volunteers
that helps recovering
drug addicts was
detained in Madrid and
later deported,
Brazilian daily O Globo
reported Friday.
The Catholic group was
enroute to visit a
charity project in
Germany when they were
detained for more than
26 hours at the Madrid
airport before being
deported. Only one of
the five volunteers was
allowed to travel to
Germany.
"We felt vexed by their
disrespect," said Elza
Cortez, who was going to
Germany to visit her
daughter near Berlin.
She and the other
volunteers arrived in
Madrid on Wednesday but
along with about 20
other countrymen had to
fly back to Brazil on
Thursday.
"The policemen took away
all our medicine and
there were peoplefeeling
ill, sick people with
heart conditions, and an
eight-monthpregnant
lady," Cortez said.
Spanish police alleged
that the volunteers were
detained because they
were not able to present
the proper documents and
didnot have the
financial resources
necessary to continue
their trip.
But Mathias Laminski,
the German Catholic
priest who invited the
volunteers to Germany,
denied those
allegations.
Laminski said the
Spanish guards were
sarcastic when talking
tohim on the phone,
saying that a decision
to detain the volunteers
or not depended "on the
boss' mood."
At the beginning of this
year, diplomatic
relations between Brazil
and Spain were strained
after Brazilians were
repeatedly detained for
long hours and then
deported.
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